Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Monday April 07, 2014 @05:50PM
from the try-again-later dept.

An anonymous reader writes "On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to rule on the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's bulk acquisition and storage of phone record metadata. The petition (PDF) for a Supreme Court ruling was submitted as a result of U.S. District Judge Richard Leon staying his ruling (PDF), pending an appeal, in a suit in which he concluded that collection of phone metadata without probable cause violated the Fourth Amendment. The plaintiffs had bypassed the federal appeals court and applied directly to the high court, given Judge Leon's admission that the case had significant national security interests at stake. The Supreme Court's decision not to rule on the case means that an appeal will need to be submitted to the federal appeals court as per protocol, but there is speculation that the mass surveillance issue will likely be addressed in the legislative and executive branches of government before the judicial branch weighs in. The provision allowing the bulk collection, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, expires June 1, 2015.'"

no, they have the courage to do the right thing and allow the appellate court to rule. The only time a level of appeal should be skipped is when there are differing opinions extant at the many appellate courts.

I'm afraid this is not true. An appellate court, presented with a singular case, can make a wrong decision. That means appealing to the Supreme Court, especially ofr issues of constitutional law or refinement of previous Supreme Court precedents which are being misapplied.

That is one of the few mistakes our founders made. Allowing the court to ignore cases.

Obviously you didn't read the article, nor understand the summary.

The court did not ignore the case. There is a procedure. It starts at the circuit court. Then it goes through the appeals court, usually first with panel of 3, then the full appeals court. The SCOTUS is the final level of appeals.

The process works as a vetting and refining system. The SCOTUS only gets involved in situations where different appeals courts have used differing standards or when there are certain controversial or seemingly contradictory situations. The district judge wanted to get around the procedures. It is very rarely successful except in cases where urgency is required and the implications are severe, such as the 'hanging chads' controversy. The court disagreed, wanting the case to go through the normal process.

As with every issue that is a political hot topic, the SCOTUS will tend to wait to give congress a chance to address this before ruling. Often when Congress amends the law while a case is in progress, the appeal will simply remand it back to the district court with an order to follow the revised law rather than the old law.

As of now, in the DC court, his initial ruling (that the bulk collection is unconstitutional) still stands, even though he put in a stay (delay before carrying out the order) in order to allow for appeals. If he felt so strongly he could have not accepted the stay, which would mean the government would need to implement the order immediately and the feds would have needed to petition for an emergency stay from a higher court.

Right now the ruling is that the collection is unlawful. With the appeal denied so far, that decision stands. That is what we want, so don't complain about it.

The plaintiffs had bypassed the federal appeals court and applied directly to the high court, given Judge Leon's admission that the case had significant national security interests at stake. The Supreme Court's decision not to rule on the case means that an appeal will need to be submitted to the federal appeals court as per protocol,

You do realize there were almost 2 million federal cases last year? Even if the Supreme Court was in session 24/7 for the entire years, they'd have to hear arguments, rule, and write an opinion every 20 seconds to avoid ignoring any of them.

Another was to assume that subsequent political leaders would have the same personal integrity as they did and would strive to uphold the basic principles of the Constitution.

The Constitution was being ignored almost before the ink was dry on the Bill of Rights with even Jefferson prosecuting people with laws that he thought unconstitutional. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]

In Canada sometimes the government will ask the Supreme Court for an opinion on the Constitutionality of a law before it gets signed. Much better then passing laws of questionable constitutionality and letting people suffer until it works its way up the chain of appeals courts.

The Supreme Court is the final arbitrator of what is constitutional so who better to give an opinion? The alternative is to pass the law, people get charged, go to court with all the hassles, perhaps get convicted and go to jail, eventually someone can afford the legal costs of multiple appeals until the law is thrown out, perhaps by a Provincial Supreme Court or Court of Appeals with the Supreme Court declining to hear the case or perhaps by the Supreme Court itself.There are also issues of Federal vs Prov

I think you're asking the wrong question. Why wouldn't you use the Supreme Court? They're the body that's ultimately in charge of deciding whether it's constitutional or not. What's bizarre is choosing to use a third-party lawyer arbitrarily. Just so that you can say you didn't use the Supreme Court?

The US has determined the their constitution forbids federal courts from issuing advisory opinions. Some states do the same as Canada though with their state supreme courts.

In most countries there's a method the government can use to find out if a proposal it wants to enact is Constitutional before it gets passed. In many countries there's actually a specific Court, completely separate from the regular Court system. In others they just ask the Supreme Court. The Canadians have been doing this since 1875.

This looks really weird to Americans, but OTOH it would have been really nice if instead of arguing for two years about whether ObamaCare was Constitutional Pelosi could just h

In most countries there's a method the government can use to find out if a proposal it wants to enact is Constitutional before it gets passed. In many countries there's actually a specific Court, completely separate from the regular Court system. In others they just ask the Supreme Court. The Canadians have been doing this since 1875.

Not quite for Canada as up until 1949 ('33 for criminal cases) it was possible to appeal to the King (actually the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J... [wikipedia.org]

There's actually a specific legal provision for that. Canadian governments can ask Courts for "Advisory opinions" on whether a particular law is Constitutional. These cases are also called "reference questions."

Since we invented Judicial Review basically by accident (the Founders were convinced the natural give-and-take of government would keep everyone Constitutional, and therefore didn't include any Constitutional provisions for dealing with what happens when somebody says the Constitution was violated),

They only declined to expedite the case by having it skip the normal appeals process; they did not decline to hear it at all. And, as the case now stands, a decline to hear or reverse the lower court means that the NSA loses as that is what the lower court decided.

You see, sometimes declining to hear is just a way of saying the outcome is so obvious and the lower courts already got it right so stop wasting our time.

Conservative legal activist Larry Klayman, unlike other challengers, seeks damages from Verizon and U.S. officials â" which may keep his two cases alive, experts say. Cases brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., do not seek damages.

The request for past damages means that his lawsuit can't be mooted by legislative changes.All the other lawsuits are only asking for injuctions, and Congress can make them go away.

There are around 300 million firearms in the United States. The US military has under 8000 armored vehicles that could even remotely considered "tanks"

If the people of the united states rose up against their government, it would be no contest. The military would lose very quickly. This is the point of the Right to bare arms. There can be no military coup in this country while the populace is so armed.

Armed infantry. or guerrillas, can destroy the fuel supplies, supply lines, and the personnel who reload and refuel the tanks. Tanks require far, far more fuel, maintenance, and much larger ammunition depots than ground troops. Basically, if you can engage in effective guerrilla warfare, you can defeat an artillery based army. Take a good look at the history of invasions of Russia and Afghanistan for particularly effective ground forces versus armor historical combats.

Armed infantry. or guerrillas, can destroy the fuel supplies, supply lines, and the personnel who reload and refuel the tanks. Tanks require far, far more fuel, maintenance, and much larger ammunition depots than ground troops. Basically, if you can engage in effective guerrilla warfare, you can defeat an artillery based army. Take a good look at the history of invasions of Russia and Afghanistan for particularly effective ground forces versus armor historical combats.

But it's not the guns that do it. It's explosives and booby traps. Mostly explosive booby traps. And it's definitely not legal guns that can do it.

Which means that even if the Second Amendment was repealed today, and all legal guns disappeared, the odds of a successful rebellion in the US would not decrease.

Check out the Mythbusters numerous attempts to get fuel to blow up with bullets. It almost never works. When it does work instead of *boom* they get a fire. To get gasoline to explode you need a very specific fuel-air mixture, which is very difficult to get by accident. It's even harder to get it in military fuel tanks because the military isn;t gonna design fuel tanks that blow up.

If you want to stop a tank division dead in it's tracks by attacking the supply trucks guns aren't the best option. Some sort o

> Check out the Mythbusters numerous attempts to get fuel to blow up with bullets

Very interesting. _Burning_ the fuel supply counts as destroying it. I still suspect it's easier to get bullets, and use them from a relatively safe distance, than to build and successfully deploy explosives near an ammo dump. I also agree that land mines and RPG's are more effective for direct attacks on armor.

But the point I was making is that small arms, even household firearms permitted under various states' more regulat

They only got fire with tracer rounds, which are really bad to use against a defended military position. If the other guy knows where you're shooting from you die.

My point isn't that there are no tactical situations where a gun would be useful. After you rebel it illegally importing firearms is pretty much inevitable. Historically successful rebellions a long-ass time -- the VC started their rebellion in the 40s, and didn't fully succeed until Saigon fell in '75, our own Revolution took almost 8 years, etc.

Thats the question, with todays computerized lists, decades of state and federal informants, interconnected fusion centres and war hardened troops all that you need is flimsy legality of local door to door searches.
A knock on the door to surrender all now listed 'illegal' hardware. A truck waiting for a drive to a local reeducation camp would be quick solution for many.
Any people not understanding the lawful request to comply would be re interviewed and their complex views taken into consideration by t

In one encounter within the urban area a Challenger 2 came under attack from irregular forces with machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. The driver's sight was damaged and while attempting to back away under the commander's directions, the other sights were damaged and the tank threw its tracks entering a ditch. It was hit directly by fourteen rocket propelled grenades from close range and a MILAN anti-tank missile.[15] The crew survived remaining safe within the tank until the tank was recovered for repairs, the worst damage being to the sighting system. It was back in operation six hours later after repairs. One Challenger 2 operating near Basra survived being hit by 70 RPGs in another incident.

Modern tanks are designed so those don't work. The biggest thing is they almost all use diesel fuel, and diesel fuel simply does not burn. This protects most US Army vehicles, and others (like the M1 Abrams) are designed so that a Molotov can't blow up their gasoline.

The armor on the Abrams is particularly effective. You'd think we'd lose dozens in two wars over a decade, but we've only lost a handful.

Now you can clearly majorly fuck up a tank with booby traps, but not a Molotov cocktail, and you probably

Don't be daft. 1/3rd will rise up, 1/3rd will take the side of government and 1/3rd will be indifferent, any other split would see elections being able to solve things. End result will be something like Democrats vs Republicans, red states vs blue states or rich vs poor. Just look at the tea party and the occupy movements, both demonized by the press, government and in public opinion. Or look at the history of the USA, Washington used the Army to put down the Whiskey rebellion successfully, Lincoln used the

Of which, only about what 1000 can be expected to rise up in rebellion, and be summarily put down.

But by all means, keep serving the myth that america is more free because small arms are widely available. By believing this myth you support the continued reign of the oligarchs and their attempts to suppress the rule of the people. After all, why do the hard work of protesting when you can just claim that your freedom is upheld by guns you will never use? Continue to comfort yourself with the lie.

In many other democracies, similar provocations from the government would have the people out on the street in mass protest. Why is this not happening in the US? I think the problem is people who lay claim to some violent overthrow of the government. Perhaps they do it inadvertently, perhaps encouraging compliance with the regime is intentional. But whatever the motivation:

(a) Claiming that legal access to small arms makes the US somehow exceptional as a democracy an

There are around 300 million firearms in the United States. The US military has under 8000 armored vehicles that could even remotely considered "tanks"

If the people of the united states rose up against their government, it would be no contest. The military would lose very quickly. This is the point of the Right to bare arms. There can be no military coup in this country while the populace is so armed.

This is the Founders' logic. The thing they didn't understand is that in the US all these assholes are responsible to the people anyway.

If all 300 million Americans actually want Obama to stop the metadata collection then all they have to do is send him a Congress that says "fuck Metadata collection." We can do this in November. Two years from now we get to replace Obama. Hell in practical terms we could do this tomorrow simply by refusing to go to work until Obama resigns. General Strikes c an be quite eff

You don't think American's hobbyists could take down a Predator drone?

With what?

They're big planes with multiple redundancies so firearms probably won't punch a big enough hole to take the damn things down. There's a reason it's news when the Taliban/Iran/whomever takes one out with firearms. Rockets could work, but launching them within the borders of the US would be dumb because rocket fire is incredibly easy to back trace. They'll know exactly where to send the SWAT team two seconds after you fire the rocket.

1) They are convinced their firearms scare the Army. The Army does not give two shits about you, all your buddies, and your AR-15s combined. It does not matter how many after-market parts you added. Since WW1 the Army has fought no wars where enemies armed with firearms caused most casualties. Hippy-artist-types scare the shit out of the Army because they can design creative booby-traps, and creative booby-traps were the VC's bread and butter. Iraqi and Afghani insurgents,

If you read the summary in the/. post that you commented on, you would have seen that someone did bring the suit before a lower court. The lower court ruled that the practice was unconstitutional, but stayed their judgement on appeal as they knew it would be appealed. That being said, usually when the Supreme Court denies hearing a case, it means that the last ruling was the correct ruling. However, in this case, the plaintiffs simply need to appeal to the full appellate court.

A few different groups tried that with very skilled lawyers and had some success.http://www.freedomwatchusa.org... [freedomwatchusa.org]
The problem now is a new legal limbo - you can have all the Fourth Amendment you want but NSA color of law efforts have ensured your US domestic/international network use fair game.
Your legal protections cannot be weakened, removed and still stand but the NSA seems to have ensured no timely legal remedy from a vast long term illegal domestic surveillance network.
Many people saw a vast ill

Ya want to see some action here? The plaintiffs should go back to judge Leon asking him to lift his stay. Since the Supreme's clearly don't view this as some kind of 'crisis' situation that needed their attention it is therefore logical that it isn't important enough to require a stay of the original ruling. If Leon lifted his stay the defendants would be appealing & moving the case forward far faster than the plaintiffs would.

That is what the judge wrote in his order. The court order makes for some intense reading compared to
most rulings.

The last paragraph in his order is about as strict as he could word it: I hereby give the Government fair notice that should my ruling be upheld, this order will go into effect forthwith. Accordingly, I fully expect that during the appellate process, which will consume at least the next six months, the Government will take whatever steps necessary to comply with this order when, and if, it is upheld. Suffice it to say, requesting further time to comply with this order months from now will not be well received and could result in collateral sanctions./Signed/ RICHARD J. LEON, United States District Judge.

If he removed the stay he would need to allow the government time to implement the changes. This way the clock is already ticking.

I guess we now know for sure who holds the real power in the US now that the supreme court judges are too cowardly to do their god damned jobs. Are they too busy hearing other cases? What case could be more pressing that allegations of illegal mass surveillance? 300 million victims, and some cowards in robes.

They just need more time for their corporate puppetmasters to tell them what to do.. that's all.

No, they are doing exactly what their puppet masters want them to do. If they heard the case then they'd have to rule and something might change, not to mention they'd have a really hard time writing an opinion that says the surveillance in question doesn't violate the constitution. Refusing to hear the case means that the status quo is maintained for a while longer.

Or maybe they think that a decision isn't required and the lower courts can solve this. Generally, this would mean either the issue isn't important enough for them, the matter is settled law or the issue has been insufficiently litigated at a lower level. We can rule out the first two. Doesn't mean they won't come back for a bite at it if it is not resolved.

That's because the Supreme Court has taken cases before they went to the federal appellate level. Those disputes, which seemingly pale in comparison to the NSA surveillance at issue, involved the constitutionality of the US Sentencing Commission, the value of a floundering railroad, a coal strike, and the eviction of an Ohio tenant from a housing rental.

So pretty much, they say they take things that seem to have an immediacy. The thing is, not only does this affect everyone with a phone or Internet access, but it is affecting all of us right now. This is not a question over whether or not what the NSA was doing in the past violated the constitution, but that what they are doing right now violates the constitution. Thus providing an example that what they choose to allow to bypass the lower courts has nothing to do with importance, immediacy, or publ

This is not a question over whether or not what the NSA was doing in the past violated the constitution, but that what they are doing right now violates the constitution.

The question is whether or not there is a reason that a final ruling has to be given right now.

How is what the NSA is doing affecting you right now, such that they have to stop immediately? How will a, say, 1 year delay affect you? During that year, are you likely to be deprived of your life? Liberty? A large amount of money?

No? Then it's probably worthwhile to let the system work the way it was intended.

How is what the NSA is doing affecting you right now, such that they have to stop immediately?

They're responsible for egregiously violating nearly everyone's rights and the highest law of the land, something that they continue to make worse with each passing day. I can think of nothing more in need of a quick response.

As for being impatient... I take it that that means you do not care that the NSA is violating nearly everyone's fundamental liberties and the constitution each and every day? If anyone isn't "impatient" about solving this problem, they're damn fools.

You whack the ball back and forth over the net, but you gotta win by two: Advantage, Deuce, Advantage Deuce, Game,. Set, Tie Breaker, Match.
Its both the rules of the game and the game of the rules at the very same time.
So its not, not just a game. Its not not the law.

"The provision allowing the bulk collection, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, expires June 1, 2015."Yeah, right. They'll extend it indefinitely, it will never 'expire'. (Just like all the the other things that were supposed to 'expire'.)

*"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not beviolated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supportedby Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to besearched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Sandra Day O'Connor hasn't been on the Supreme Court for eight years now. That glorified shitstain Sam Alito replaced her. While it would certainly be interesting to hear her opinion of the case, such opinion would carry no weight whatsoever.

This doesn't really mean anything, and it would be surprising if SCOTUS actually did hear it now. The supreme court just basically said this needs to work its way through the normal appeals process. This might actually be better, since if you want to set a good and lasting precedent you should follow EVERY procedure in the most precedential way. Don't read too much into this decision.

Love to hear your opinion on the rest of the idiots. Considering if it were just those three, they could of chosen to hear this case I believe. So what's your damnable excuse for the other 5 besides petty partisan politics.

If you're still thinking that only the Democrats or only the Republicans are the problem, please realize YOU are the problem.

And yet they are 3 of the 5 that realized that Chris Matthews* is actually an employee of a corporation and that there is no actual way to distinguish his employer from a documentary film maker so they chose to allow Chris Matthews to continue to be employed by a corporation to do what he does and to let the documentary film maker also continue. However, you and Chris Matthews would be happier if all 9 had agreed that being employed by a corporation meant making no more politically oriented speech so that C